To Save a Stranger from Quiet Evils
by Scribe Shiloh
Summary: Fic for Day Six of Asexuality Awareness Week. This particular story takes place in the Earth-3 universe: In which the Jokester finds a girl crying in an empty schoolyard, and asks her what's wrong.


In explanation, Oct. 23-29, 2011 is Asexuality Awareness Week. In honor of this, I've been doing a short fic a day in different fandoms, each pertaining somehow to asexuality. This is the fic for Day Six, posted here a bit late. For those of you who don't know about asexuality, please give the topic a moment of your time by visiting the Asexual Visibility and Education Network and reading their overview!

**Title:** To Save a Stranger from Quiet Evils  
><strong>Prompt:<strong> Asexuality Awareness Week.  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 1922  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG-13  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Jokester, asexual!OC  
><strong>Warnings:<strong> This is very dark. There is non-explicit but potentially **triggery** discussion concerning coersion.  
><strong>Summary:<strong> In which the Jokester finds a girl crying in an empty schoolyard, and asks her what's wrong.  
><strong>Notes:<strong> This takes place in the **Earth-3** universe (from Countdown to Final Crisis)

To Save a Stranger from Quiet Evils

It's Saturday evening, and a child is crying on a deserted schoolyard bench.

_No, not a child,_ Jokester corrects himself, tiptoeing closer across the rain-slicked rooftops and through shrouds of cold steam as grey needles pour from the sky, lancing his skin with cold. _A teenager. A girl._

She's bent with her head hanging over her knees, and she looks like a wilted flower. The colors of her jumper and jeans are faded, washed into sullen, muted ghosts of their former brightness by the rain and the night. Her hair, stringy with moisture, is the last gold left in the gloom. Around her, paint peels from derelict wooden castles and mud swells into the empty footprints of yesterday's children.

Jokester considers her. She hasn't seen him yet. Frankly, he'd be surprised if she noticed _anything_ until it got within a few feet of her. _Dangerous_, he thinks. _She might as well be shining a spotlight into the sky that says 'Look at me! I'm a target!'_

He glances out into the gloom. It's Saturday evening, and the streets are as quiet as they get. Owlman gives Gotham a day to breathe between the fallout from the last Tuesday and the start of the next. Very little crime happens without the Crime Syndicate's approval, so on Saturdays the streets are quiet, and only mice linger in the darkness of most shadows.

It's probably the only reason the girl is still alive.

Jokester balances his mallet on his shoulder and gauges the distance to the ground. He swings from the lip of the roof down to the gritty street below, his polished shoes snapping, sharp and loud, against the concrete. The noise catches the girl's attention, and her head whips up to look at him. Her eyes are wide shadows, unreadable in the pouring rain from this distance. She doesn't run, however, which means that she either knows who he is or just doesn't care. He hopes for the former and crosses the street. He keeps his hands where she can see them. His smile is, as always, red and warm and welcoming, but he can't tell if she's comforted by that or not.

He reaches the bench. The girl stares dully up at him. This close, he can tell that her eyes are swollen and leaking tears that are swallowed by the rain, and that they're the color of the sky that Gotham never sees: clear light blue.

She doesn't say anything, so Jokester speaks first. He gestures to a spot on the bench next to her and says, "Mind if I take a seat?"

She shakes her head and sniffles. Jokester interprets her response optimistically and sits down, leaning his mallet against the side of the bench. The girl lifts her fingers and rubs at her eyes.

Jokester watches her for a moment, then rummages for something in the inside pocket of his coat. "Here," he says, "have a smile. You look like you could use one." He pulls out a wind-up chattering false teeth toy and hands it to her, grinning.

She stares at the offering blankly for a few seconds. Then the absurdity of the gift hits her, and her face is transformed as she hiccups with laughter. She curls her fingers around the toy and cradles it in her palms. "Thanks," she says, and sniffles again. Her voice is shaky, but her smile clings to the curve of her mouth like a sliver of sun over the edge of storm clouds.

"Don't mention it," Jokester says, waving a hand carelessly. "What's your name?"

"Alicia," the girl says. She straightens a bit and tucks strings of damp hair behind one ear. "I know who you are. You're the Jokester."

Jokester's grin widens. He loves it when people recognize him. It tells him that Owlman hasn't won yet; Jokester keeps hope and decency alive in some hearts still. "That's right!" He tilts his head to one side and his smile fades, just a little, into something less manic and more sympathetic. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asks gently.

Alicia stares at him. One…two…three…seven raindrops collect on the tip of her nose and drop before she looks away, down at the clean, bright red and white toy in her hands. She looks back up at him. "Okay," she says, just as softly.

Jokester waits. Alicia has looked down at the toy again, rolling it absently in her fingers and not really seeing it. It's a comforting weight: something solid and clean amidst a life stained with pain and breaking apart around her. Jokester knows how that feels.

"It's one of my friends," she says. "This guy I started hanging out with over summer. He's a lot of fun. We like the same stuff—books and movies and games. We'd see each other every day, even once school started. We have some classes together, too. Anyway, he…he really likes me, I found out. Well, he told me as much."

Jokester's smile vanishes altogether. The chill in the air sinks into his stomach and freezes his insides, heavy and cold with dread. He does not like where this is going.

"And, well, I wasn't interested in him that way. I'm still not," she goes on. "I like him as a friend, you know?"

Jokester nods.

"I told him so, and he left it alone for a while. Then he started bringing it up again, and all the time, too. Saying he loves me, wants to be with me, asking me if I'm sure I'm not interested in at least _trying_. He told me that he doesn't want to go through life wondering if it would have worked out, and regretting never having tried."

Jokester feels the cold in his stomach kindle with anger.

Alicia sniffs again, harder this time, and swallows. She rubs her thumb in little circles along the chattering teeth's plastic joints. "I tried saying that really, no, I just like him as a friend, that's all. I mean, I like touching and hugs and all that, but it's just…hugs, you know? I don't want anything more. I don't want…" Her breath catches in her throat and she swallows hard. "Well, he wants it. He asked me if he just wasn't my type. And I…I told him the truth. I don't _have_ a type. I'm not…I've never looked at anyone like that. I've never been attracted to _anyone _that way, and I don't think I'm going to ever start."

_Well,_ Jokester thinks. _That's a twist._ And then he thinks, _Oh, geez, _because he knows what's coming before she tells him.

"He like, couldn't believe it. He asked if I'd been hurt before by someone, and I said no. I haven't. I've had a pretty good life so far. Good as you can get in Gotham, right?"

Jokester cracks a tiny, tiny smile at the joke, and nods.

"And then he's like 'well, have you ever tried it?' And I said no, because I've never wanted to. I don't…" She shivers, and Jokester doesn't think it's because of the cold or the rain. "So, anyway, he starts telling me that I can't possibly know unless I try it, and there's no better opportunity than with him. I kept telling him no, but he just wouldn't stop. He started saying that there must be something _wrong_ with me. We got into an argument today, after school." She pauses, takes a deep breath, and swallows again. Her head tilts down and her hair slides free from her ear and falls like a knife-torn curtain by her cheek. "He said it's not healthy, that I must be sick or something. And when I said I'm not sick, I'm _fine_, he said that I must be heartless to be so cruel and lead him on. He said that I owe it to him to give it a try after everything I've put him through. He said he'd help me get over my…psychosis or whatever…and I'd be helping him in return. And I just…I don't know what to do. I just don't know!"

Alicia crumbles into sobs. Her shoulders shudder like leaves beneath the pouring rain. Jokester sits very still and stares at her. He can't feel his fingers anymore; he's clenched them into fists so tight that the blood has fled and his nails have nearly cut through the cloth of his gloves. He's furious.

Jokester has been fighting the overt crimes, the bloody street wars and muggings and "protection payments". When he manages to save people, he saves them from knives and explosives and other violent deaths all too commonplace in Gotham. But he's never saved someone from such an insidious evil as this one.

Jokester will rectify that tonight.

"Hey," he says, and reaches out to touch the top of his gloved index finger to the tip of her chin. "That guy," he says, as firmly as he can while keeping his voice quiet and gentle. "is not your friend. He's the one who's sick, not you."

Alicia looks at him, water-blue eyes filling with rain or tears or both. "B-but m-maybe he's right. M-maybe there's s-something wrong with m-me."

"_No,_" Jokester says. His voice is tight and his eyes are hard. "No. Hey, look, there's nothing wrong with you. You're not sick and you're not a freak." By the way she flinches, Jokester can tell she's been called that before. "And I _know_ sick, believe me. I'm an expert on freak, too. Just look at me. There's no one nuttier on the streets than the Jokester, and I'm telling you that you're _fine_."

She smiles, just a little. Jokester smiles back encouragingly. "No one knows you better than yourself, got it? And _no one_ has the right to make those decisions for you. This little punk is way out of line. He's the worst kind of predator: ignorant, selfish, and relentless. Don't let him hurt you, you got that?"

Alicia nods slowly and catches her lower lip in her teeth. She looks down at the toy in her hands and folds her palms closed around it. "Okay. Yeah." A wavering smile creeps to life. "Hey." She looks up at him again. "Thanks. I guess…I guess I knew all that but…"

Jokester understands. "Sometimes you need someone else to believe in you, too," he finishes for her.

Alicia's smile strengthens and she nods. "Yeah."

Jokester grins. "You're fantastic, kiddo. Don't you ever doubt it. And hey, if you ever need any help, you just give me a call, okay? Here's my number." He pulls a card out of his inside coat pocket. It's soggy, but still legible, so he offers it to Alicia. She pinches it gingerly between her fingers and smiles. "Leave a message," he says. "I check them pretty often."

Alicia carefully clamps the chattering teeth's jaws around the little card to hold it securely. "Thank you. Really, thank you."

"Don't mention it, kiddo." Jokester stands up off the bench and looks at the sky for a moment. "You'd better get inside before you freeze to the bone. I'll walk you home, okay? You don't want to be out here this late alone, even on a Saturday."

"Yeah. Thanks again. I don't live far from here." Alicia stands up, a little wobbly on her feet, so Jokester offers his arm in support. She takes it, grateful, and leads the way.


End file.
